By Bruce Kesler
ENCINITAS, California — international media usually seeks out and features negative news about Israel or exaggerates it or treats it in a biased manner. So, too, on the issue of African immigrants to Israel. There is a natural, and commendable, empathy for peoples in dire straits or whose experience, by large stretches of analogy, may be compared to other groups, like Hispanics or Blacks in the US, but that alone does not merit one-sided coverage of this issue or the lack of facts and context.
As in the US, it is difficult to count the number of illegal immigrants, so hard numbers of illegal African immigrants in Israel are estimates. According to Wikipedia, there were about 26,000 in July 2010 and 55,000 in January 2012. Estimates of new arrivals are about 1,000 a month, which would bring the June 2012 number to over 60,000. Two-thirds are estimated to be in south Tel Aviv and another 20 percent in the resort city of Eilat. Some other estimates of illegal African immigrants in Israel are higher. This is a lower percentage of illegal immigrants than in the US, but Israel should not wait until it is as large a problem as here. There are also about 150,000 Black Ethiopian Jews in Israel. Black Ethiopian Jews were helped to immigrate by Israel.
As in the US, there is certainly racism against Blacks within Israel. There is also acceptance and substantial aid within Israel, as in the US for its illegal immigrants.
As in the US, the primary issues, however, revolve around culture and poverty among most illegal immigrants. The illegal Africans are not Jewish nor do they have common culture in most other respects. Nonetheless, Black African Christians in Israel have been permitted to establish churches as religious and community centers, while Christians and their churches are attacked by Moslems in other countries. As in the US, poor and uneducated illegal immigrants are a significant drain on the state’s resources.
Although claims of extraordinary crime rates among illegal African immigrants are overstated, it is a rising problem and, as elsewhere in the world, often targeted at each other.
In a civil rights oriented Israel, efforts to form a united front among people of color within Israel are in its initial steps, but there are deep divisions between those of lighter and darker coloration, between Moslems, Christians and Jews, between countries of origin, etc.
Israel honors the highest international standards regarding illegal immigrants. Only those from Eritrea, the majority of the Black illegal immigrants, are eligible under the UN Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees, due to the unsafe conditions there. Others may be deported, but neither their countries of origin nor Egypt, across whose Sinai border with Israel they come, are willing to take them.
Israel issues three-month-at-a time temporary residence permits to most Black illegal immigrants, which also allows them to have employment and housing. That isn’t the case in the US.
As elsewhere, most of the illegal immigrants are economic refugees, seeking a better life in Israel, compared to their countries of origin or the countries they pass through on their way to Israel. Bedouin smugglers aid their crossing the Israeli border, and many remain deeply in debt for their passage.
Holding camps capable of housing several thousand Black illegal immigrants are being built by the Israeli government.
For security purposes, Israel is in the process of erecting barriers along the Sinai border, which may also help reduce the number of future illegal immigration.
France, Spain and Italy have a colonial involvement with North Africa and elsewhere, from which their large illegal immigrant population comes and many go on to elsewhere in the open-border European Union, creating political, safety and economic concerns. Israel does not have any such “responsibility” for the countries from which the Black illegal immigrants come.
This is a thorny problem for Israel, not improved by misleading reports.
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Kesler, a freelance writer based in Encinitas, may be contacted at bruce.kesler@sdjewishworld.com
Excuse me, what I was trying to say is that only a tiny minority get work visas. The vast majority get three months renewable visas that includes the stipulation that it is forbidden to work. These are the refugees sleeping in the park in Shapira, which is obvious. You say you aren’t holding your breath, yet again, in your article above you claim that most of the Africans in Israel are economic migrants without citing any evidence of this. What is your basis for such a claim? If the refugees were allowed to work, why would anyone need to empty a bank account? Employment means being able to support oneself. In addition, other community members benefit from their labor. Countries all over the world have stepped up to accept refugees without any stipulation that they wouldn’t accept African refugees in Israel.
Christopher: Their temp residency permits DO allow them to work and do allow them to get housing. — Name the countries that have said they want the African illegal immigrants? Name the countries they passed through to get to Israel that they do not want to be in? The Eritreans are kept under UN rules. The others, and many of the Eritreans, are mostly economic refugees. — I’m still waiting, without holding my breath, for you to take some into your house’s backyard, tell your neighbors to, and help others camp out in your nearest park. — If Israel allows further floodgates of Africans to enter and stay in Israel, will you empty your bank account to support and educate and employ them? Israel can’t, and needn’t, and shouldn’t, aside from totally transform itself into Africa North.
Mr. Kesler — let’s talk about the real facts. The 3-month temporary work permits DO NOT allow the refugees to work, nor is there assistance with housing. The refugees do not get ANY help with housing from the state at all. Furthermore, countries have stepped up to take refugees, but the current Israeli government has an asylum process designed to reject as many applicants as possible. Out of the thousands of requests for refugee status submitted in Israel last year, a total of eight were approved.
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Christopher: Rolling 3-month temporary residence permits allow employment and housing, if you’d read the post. However, the very poor and uneducated are an economic burden as well as largely unemployable. The work permits to non-refugee foreigners are to educated who have needed skills. No countries have stepped up to resettle either those illegal African immigrants in Israel already nor the millions of others who would love to leave their horrible conditions in many African countries. — There is no shame in wanting a better life, and wholesale immigration of those with entirely different cultures into Europe has demonstrated the perils for their societies. Hardly a guide to Israel, nor for Israel to remain a Jewish state.
Mr. Kesler, as a private citizen and volunteer I have helped hundreds of refugees during their difficult resettlement process in this country. I also know that many Israelis have generously done their part to help the refugees in their midst. If you are worried about refugees sleeping in Tel Aviv parks then perhaps you could help persuade Israel’s current right-wing government to allow these people to work and be able to pay for their own shelter. You say Israel has no means to help care for tens of thousands of refugees, yet in 2009 alone the country granted 30,000 work permits to non-refugee foreigners to help with the labor shortage. No one asks Israel for accountability for Africa’s plight. It is a collective task for the rest of the world, which maintains world stability and protects our collective security. The U.S., Canada, Australia and Sweden have generously agreed to resettle hundreds of thousands of refugees to help with this, and would no doubt accept many refugees currently staying in Israel if the current Israeli government would allow the UN to make refugee determinations there. Finally, lets keep in mind that most of our ancestors who settled this country were either refugees or economic migrants. There is no shame in that. We respect people’s determination for economic self-survival and opportunity.
Christopher: 1. It is the UN who chooses who qualifies under its Convention.
2. It is on site interviewers who find that most are economic refugees. (Those most threatened for their lives lose their lives to the barbarities from where they come.) 3. Israel is not responsible for the plight that afflicts much of Africa, has not the means to take in tens and tens of thousands of Africans, growing to hundreds of thousands and then millions, nor should it. — Hey, I’ve got an idea to salve your heart: take in several dozen to your backyard, tell your neighbors to, and demand that the cities’ parks be made encampments. I’ll wait without holding my breath.
Mr. Kesler, you claim that most of the migrants in Israel are economic refugees without citing any basis for such a claim. You admit that most of the migrants in Israel are Eritrean and therefore elligle as refugees due to the unsafe conditions there, yet you do not also mention the extreme economic distress that these refugees face back home. You also write that only those from Eritrea are eligible under the UN Convention Relating To The Status Of Refugees, yet what makes you think that refugees and asylum-seekers from Sudan fare any better? According to the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for Sudan, in Darfur and other areas of conflict, government forces, rebel groups, and tribal factions committed torture and abuse. At least 29 Darfuris were arrested in 2011 and remained in arbitrary detnetion, and a state of emergency, which allows for arrest and detention without trial, remained in place in Darfur. Emergency laws in Darfur and Blue Nile State legalize interference in privacy, family, home, and correspondence. In Darfur fighting involving government forces, government-aligned militias, rebel groups, and ethnic groups continued, and government forces, government-aligned militias, rebels, and interethnic fighting killed civilians. These groups killed, injured, and raped women and girls, used child soldiers, and displaced civilians. According to UN estimates, as many as 70,000 persons were displaced between January and October in Darfur by government and rebel fighting as well as increased tribal violence. Similar conditions exist in Southern Kordofan state and Abyei.
Thank you for this clarification of the issue. As would be expected, some of Israel’s enemies are claiming that Israel is racist against all blacks and trying to exploit the racism that does exist.
Israel did live up to its Law of Return when it brought black Jews to the state in 1984-85 in Operation Moses and in 1991 in Operation Solomon. While I understand that these folks are struggling to make their way in a modern society I would like to commend the country for living by their principles.
Recently read a great fiction book about the Ethiopian Jews called Last Journey of the Ark.